Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1264 Dear italian friends, professional football fans, first-time supporters or long-time loyal ones of the rolling ball, hopefully inside the opponent's goal. I am here to offer you a bitter sweet compensation for the pain and disgrace due to the umpteenth failure to qualify for the final phase of the world tournament . You should know that according to an investigation from The Guardian, low-wage migrant workers in Qatar appear to have paid about $ 1.5 billion in taxes, possibly up to $ 2 billion, between 2011 and 2020, despite being completely illegal. These people, who are mostly from Bangladesh and Nepal, make up nearly a third of Qatar's foreign workforce, about two million, and typically pay $ 1,000 to $ 3,000 in taxes. This means that with average salaries of $ 275 a month, they are forced to work for at least a year just to pay the unfair hiring tax. On many occasions, immigrants have had to obtain a loan to pay that and unable to repay it with...

Stories and News No. 1263 Once upon a time the role playing. The eternal dance of typically human characters, which are many and act beyond time and space. Yet they are repeated each time more similar and, for the more obvious ones, the judgment of history changes according to who reads or observes. Now is the time for the Russians in these western latitudes. The Russians who bomb, the Russians who invade, the Russians who plunder, the Russians who deport, the Russians who rape and the Russians who kill. In one way, the Russians are the Bad Guys of history. They have been that for a long time and often in the last century, from the cold of a war that has not yet ended to the warmth of the pages of novels as well as movies. Nonetheless, within each chapter of the human story, if for the reasons mentioned above the “evil Russian” could be defined as the right character for the consumption of the plot to be told rather than of the Story itself, well, it must be said that such a menacin...

Stories and News No. 1262 No, this is not a tribute to Mario Martone's beautiful film , despite some similarities between the siege of Sarajevo by the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb forces and what is happening in Ukraine. On the contrary, it is the story of a much larger theater and with a much longer program over time than a movie or its plot. In some ways, we could define it as the theater par excellence, thinking in terms of history or even just a representation of the latter, as it has always staged the same show. It is inevitable since the only alternative to the topic of such a narrative is the travel. And since the world began, you should live the latter in first person or it really means that you have never moved from your chair. However, it does not matter if you remain motionless to watch, since that is the way you are influencing the piece and each of its characters the most. I'm talking about the war. Almost everyone in Europe talks about it these days. We do. As if ...

Stories and News No. 1261 Once upon a time a simple story that is like a fairy tale from older times, which probably dates back to the beginning of the latter. Even a child would understand it. Indeed, maybe he would grasp the meaning better than anyone else, older and wiser, more adult and proud of their higher education. Yet each of us, since the day when the first of humans saw the world’s light, listened to, observed and lived it with the same words, the identical chords and the same images. Or drawings, which in a fairy tale never hurt, quite the opposite. The plot is incredibly elementary: first there is peace, then war comes and in the end – hopefully, for the relief of readers from all places and times, we return to the beginning. Peace again, hurrah, because this is what we all hope for, those who read and write, and even those who attack and those who defend themselves and counterattacks, even if inside the idiocy of the fight we sometimes forget it. But then, if this stor...

Stories and News No. 1260 They look like us, is this all our European longing for peace? I don't even want to think about it. But then I read and reflect. I read about the CBS reporter who states that Ukraine "is not a country, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflicts raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European land, a country where you would not expect it, or would hope for it to happen. " The former Deputy Attorney General of Ukraine, speaking of the invasion, who candidly declared to the BBC: "It is very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair... being killed every day." But not only that, a French journalist on French TV: “We are not talking about Syrians fleeing the bombings of the Putin-backed regime. We are talking about Europeans who leave with cars that look like ours to save their lives." And the Telegraph reporter: “They look so similar to us. This...